What ever it takes!

I slept in, crazy I never do that.  I think my body is telling me something.

I didn't actually plan for this week to be such a taper but I'm just more concerned with getting myself to the start line feeling good on Saturday than anything.  I'm still not sleeping through the night so I just went to the gym this morning with the intention of running and lifting weights.  I got out of the car and did a mental health check and actually thought "wow, I don't hurt anywhere" once I started running though I could still feel some fatigue in my Quads from Suncrest, I decided to just elliptical it instead of damage myself any more.  Did that for 50 minutes and then weights.

I'm really at a loss as to where I am physically right now, running slow everywhere doesn't give you a good indication.  I know I can run for a long time but how fast is another story.  My goal for Saturday is simply do better than I did last year.  I really want to win an engraved river rock (age division prize) which even with my last years time I should do since I'm old now.  A top 10 finish is my A goal, but at this point I just really have no idea what to expect.

Nice 30 mile bike ride with my trader friends up Provo Canyon to Vivian Park, and then up South Fork.  I love that my friend used to just kill me going uphills and I was always the one suckin wind trying to follow.  I beat him to the top by about 10 minutes this morning.  Love it!  Perfect morning for a bike ride too, a little windy but still nice.

Whenever I pass runners while I'm on my bike I always think 2 things.  1. That looks really hard, do I look that bad when I'm running?  2. I should really be running, biking feels like I'm cheating.

5 easy miles around Sheridan Wyoming this morning, we drove up last night to get an extra day.

Really rough week at work, they laid off 36 people in our office Tuesday,  for some reason they spared my department though.

4 miles around Sheridan. 

Not to be a downer, but if I hadn't taken 3 days off of work and spent all that gas money to drive up here for this race I would probably drop out.  My hamstring, and foot were really hurting this morning and I have no idea why, they have both been pretty good the last month so I'm not sure what happened this week.  I guess we'll see what happens, I may ask if they will let me move to the 30K and run with my wife, or I may just go and destroy myself like I tend to do.

I feel like I should say something, I'm just not sure what.  Story of my year I suppose, doing racing injured just cause I'm too cheap to give up the entry fee.  This one was a little bit different though cause my wife is the one that wanted to come run the 30K her first trail run and first distance further than 13.1 miles.  At packet pickup I asked them if I could switch to the 30K with my wife but they told me no.  So I went into the 50M with an exit strategy, never a good plan.  Problem is I didn't even make it to my exit point (32 miles) where my in-laws and kids were waiting.  I made it to mile 21 aid station and realized it was much easier to run back 4 than forward 11 so I ended up running back to Footbridge aid station, helped take down the aid station and drove back down with a worker.  I made it to the finish line just in time to run the last 200m with my wife.  She did awesome, found a new friend and says she loves trail running.  Anything to get her to be a runner is a good thing.

Anyway, I don't care too much.  I could have hobbled for 30 miles and probably finished in 12 - 14 hours but I had no desire to do that.